Construction
A voltage divider, using two resistors, can be used to create a virtual ground node. If two voltage sources are connected in series with two resistors, it can be shown that the midpoint becomes a virtual ground if
An active virtual ground circuit is sometimes called a rail splitter. Such a circuit uses an op-amp or some other circuit element that has gain. Since an operational amplifier has very high open-loop gain, the potential difference between its inputs tend to zero when a feedback network is implemented. To achieve a reasonable voltage at the output (and thus equilibrium in the system), the output supplies the inverting input (via the feedback network) with enough voltage to reduce the potential difference between the inputs to microvolts. The non-inverting (+) input of the operational amplifier is grounded; therefore, its inverting (-) input, although not connected to ground, will assume a similar potential, becoming a virtual ground.
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